FOQA... and maintenance...

[Mitch Cronin]

I had an interesting chat this morning with our local Airbus wizard. (For one thing, I learned I'd heard wrong about which aircraft that hydraulic overtemp snag was related to... but more importantly,) I learned a heck of a lot more about how valuable the FOQA ("Fowkwa", he called it) stuff can be for those of us in maintenance....

Here's the sad part... and what brings me to writing this... He needs to prove value, in monetary terms, for line maintenance specifically. In order for our brass to accept the task of removing a disk and downloading the data, (a small task), without being "paid" by some other arm of the same company to do so. They apparently need to see some kind of proof that the value exists.

Now consider that this company (the one you all know I'm talking about, but I won't name, because if I did, some clown in corporate security could hang me for it.... and if they try while I haven't named the company, they can ram it up their **** shoot!).... has several arms that all are supposed to operate as separate business units... but, they're all a part of a single enterprise, that all exist for the same reason, and essentially accomplish the same goals.

The brass of these separate arms have all evidently been lobotomized to the extent that they apparently no longer see value in doing something that costs them ten dollars that saves another arm of the company 15 dollars! It's nuts I tell you!

Anyway... I've already heard enough to know damned well that the time it takes for someone of our bunch to pull one disk, reload another, and download the data to some mother data cruncher someplace is nothing compared to the value to the whole company.... yet this guy needs to find the singular justification, within our little business unit portion of the company, to convince one or more of these lobotomized gents, that to us in line maintenance, it's worth doing.

That hydraulic overtemp snag alone, would have saved enough to cover a years worth, or more, of doing so, but it's hard to quantify a savings for events that didn't happen.... when you have no way to determine what would have happened....

Now, he may well be able to find the evidence to present to those folks that'll convince them of the value.... but what hits me square in the binachies, is what if he can't?.... Will it kill the chance? What a sad state of affairs when a company gets so tied up in their trees that they can't see the damn forest!

Anyway, I'm gonna do what I can to learn more about all this stuff... and see if I can help to find some ways to prove $dollar value for the folks with blinders on.... and I hope to be able to take advantage of the benefits of the FOQA data in the future to help fix airplanes in a more efficient manner... I certainly know the potential is huge!

[mrlupin]

Does YYZ maintenance get to play with this new software Mitch?Is it available for us to have a try at it?

Eric

[Mitch Cronin]

Yes and no.... The opportunities (as I understand it) are available by request from fleet folk. for certain aircraft only at present....and perhaps if we could explain a need, in the right circumstance, to access the info for a given reason, the request would be made ( and here, I'm told that a good man we both know and yak with here on occasion has some input) and if the need was evident, the request would likely be granted.

There is evidently a fantastic wealth of info available, on a linear basis, that far exceeds what the dfdr would contain... and, because of it's linear recording, could be of tremendous assistance for us in trouble shooting all manner of snags.

It reminds me of how I felt when I first played with a personal computer.... the possibilities are limited only by the human imagination!

Cheers,

Mitch

[Guest R64L977]

Hey Mitch, a quick access recorder would be a nice feature to help maintenance but I've been with

two different Airbus operators that never used that item. Between post flight reports, previous legs

printouts from the aircraft, some mousing through Caats/AirNav/Adres and snag history from

maintenance control ("handover") an engineer can usually make a good decision what is

required to rectify a squawk. As for trend monitoring; that's why the jouney log has carbon copies -

someone should be recording all flight parameters back at the office and sending up "flags" to the

maintenance department when values look out of place.

[Kip Powick]

What an interesting thread !!!! I wonder what you all are talking about

Remember, not many pilots really get into this stuff, we just write, "It doesn't work, please fix it".

Good luck on your quest to satisfy the number crunchers with the tight purse strings !!!!

[Don Hudson]

Mitch, Eric;

Re who gets to play with the FOQA software...

FOQA is primarily a flight safety tool in the sense that it is used to monitor trends in daily/monthly/yearly performance. (again to be clear, it certainly isn't used to monitor individual performance and would be quickly shut down if even there were even the scent of such use). But the value for maintenance issues is clear.

Data security and confidentiality is crucial to the program primarily from the pilots' side but also from the corporate side. The pilots' association gatekeeper position is the filter through which all FOQA data will first pass. Approval to access de-identified raw system data will have to pass through this process just like any other data use will. That's so that the pilots are assured that any flight data will not be used against them in any way. This is the way FOQA is run everywhere and is an old, well-established principle which assures the continued use and survival of a FOQA program.

A number of important protocols and procedures have to be worked out before a full sharing of data with any one group can occur. This must be done so that the data is protected first, and second, so that appropriate responses to certain kinds of data can be properly guided.

We are meeting in early June to begin this process of data sharing.

Mitch, your point regarding pulling of cards is spot on but unfortunately its part of the problems we have been having in developing this program. As the value of the program is realized, this problem too, will pass. Education and constant communication is the key.

Don